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Implementing digital game-based learning in schools: augmented learning environment of ‘Europe 2045’

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Abstract

It is widely agreed that the traditional process of schooling can benefit from the usage of computers as supportive tools. Of various approaches using computers in education over the last decade, e-learning and edutainment have become the most prominent. Recently, a number of authors have criticised these approaches arguing that they conserve traditional ‘drill and practice’ behaviouristic methods of teaching instead of enhancing and augmenting them. It has been proposed that a ‘paradigm shift’ is needed and that this shift may come through utilizing all the advantages of full-fledged video games, so-called digital game-based learning (DGBL). However, several case studies reported serious problems with the DGBL. Among the most notable issues are the lack of acceptance of games as an educational tool, problems with integration of games into formal schooling environments, and the so-called transfer problem, which is the problem of the inherent tension between game play and learning objectives, the tension that mitigates the ability of students to transfer knowledge gained in the video game to the real-world context. Here, we present a framework for an augmented learning environment (ALE), which verbalises one way of how these problems can be challenged. The ALE framework has been constructed based on our experience with the educational game, Europe 2045, which we developed and which has been implemented in a number of secondary schools in the Czech Republic during 2008. The key feature of this game is that it combines principles of on-line multi-player computer games with social, role-playing games. The evaluation which we present in this paper indicates the successful integration of the game and its acceptance by teachers and students. The ALE framework isolates key principles of the game contributing to this success, abstracts them into theoretical entities we call action-based spaces and causal and grounding links, and condenses them in a coherent methodological structure, which paves the way for further exploitation of the DGBL by educational game researchers and designers.

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Notes

  1. See [37] for similar approach in environmental management learning.

  2. In fact, transfer is one of many key issues in learning and education in general (reviewed in [3, 31]). As such, it has more facets than presented here. For example, Dudai [8] refers to the transfer of training, that is, to “the contribution of training in one skill to the performance on a different skill”. Here, we restrict ourselves only to the transfer between a game’s world to the real-world context.

  3. The dominant psychological taxonomy of long-term memories makes a distinction between semantic, episodic, and procedural kinds of knowledge (and memory), e.g. [2, 47]. Procedural memory covers processes related mainly to perceptual-motor skill learning where the subjective experience is not emphasised [2]. This distinction is widely agreed upon, though other classifications, detailed sub-classifications, and “border” issues exist, e.g. [11, 40 ].

  4. The term “similarity” is not meant in any strict, quantitative way, but intuitively. The term “context” has a slightly broader meaning here than in the case of context-dependency in psychology. Similarly, recall that the term “transfer” has a broader meaning in general education than as defined in this section.

  5. Some of these findings have already been presented in [39]. The numbers presented in that paper differ from the present numbers in several minor details, because a different number of students was included in the analysis of that paper.

  6. All quotations are texts posted to the Europe 2045 on-line forums by students. All names and nicknames have been changed.

  7. The term affordance is notoriously difficult to pin down. It is used ambiguously both in the design and perception psychology communities (e.g. [22, 28]). We will disregard these intricacies here and use the term in its intuitive manner for its heuristic value.

  8. In the ALE terminology, transfer in the context of general educational research often refers to the transfer of knowledge, acquired by a student within the schooling space, to the everyday space. Here, we are more interested in transfer from the game space.

  9. We would like to thank to Arthur Greasser for pointing this fact out to us.

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Acknowledgments

Europe 2045 was developed as part of the project CZ.04.3.07/3.1.01.3/3213, financed by the European Social Fund, the State Budget of the Czech Republic, and the City of Prague. The research related to the game was partially supported by the Czech Ministry for Education, Youth and Sport (Res. Project MSM0021620838), and the project “Information Society” (1ET100300517). The authors would like to thank to Jiří Lukavský for his advice on data collection and all the co-authors of the game: most notably Petr Jakubíček, Tomáš Holan, Martin Klíma, Klára Pešková, Edita Krausová, and Veronika Hrozinková.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Mathematics-Physics, Charles University in Prague, Malostranské nám. 25, 11800, Prague 1, Czech Republic

    Cyril Brom

  2. Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, Charles University in Prague, U Kříže 10, 15000, Prague 5, Czech Republic

    Vít Šisler

  3. Faculty of Pedagogy, Charles University in Prague, Celetná 13, 11000, Prague 1, Czech Republic

    Radovan Slavík

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  1. Cyril Brom
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Correspondence to Vít Šisler.

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Brom, C., Šisler, V. & Slavík, R. Implementing digital game-based learning in schools: augmented learning environment of ‘Europe 2045’. Multimedia Systems 16, 23–41 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00530-009-0174-0

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